This is the winter of VC, but it is also the spring of KOL Agency.

The boundaries between these top VCs and leading agencies are becoming increasingly blurred.

Written by: Jaleel Jia Liu, BUBBLE, BlockBeats

Thanks to all the agencies that participated in the interviews: Evie (JE Labs); Miko (Hyperion); Er Gou (BLOCKFOCUS); Dov, Gary, Joyce (Mango Labs); Sam (WOK Labs), and others (anonymous).

KOL agencies are stepping in to fill the gap left by crypto VCs.

Last weekend, another once-prominent Chinese crypto VC paused its operations. Against the backdrop of tightening liquidity in global financial markets, the crypto industry has entered a prolonged "garbage time," and venture capital (VC) is experiencing an unprecedented winter. However, the KOL agency sector, which has suddenly emerged during this cycle, is enjoying a spring.

During a call with BlockBeats, Mango Labs founder Dov was on his way home after dinner. His current work pace is more intense than when he was a VC, with business and projects coming in fast and furious; he spends his days either in meetings or making impromptu calls by the roadside. After fully committing to agency work, his identity and rhythm have changed.

Projects are hard to execute, and VCs are struggling, but on the other hand, over 20 KOL agencies have emerged in the market over the past six months, becoming one of the hottest and most profitable new business models this year. Dov, who was still in the VC field a year ago, seems to have foreseen the industry's changes.

"Many VCs are having a tough time this year and are now starting to transition into agencies," said Miko, founder of Hyperion. One of their core team members shut down their own VC last month and joined the agency sector.

This seems to be a common trend in the industry, as most core team members of agencies have prior investment experience.

Agencies are gradually becoming the "next stop" for VC professionals. As VCs lose their appeal to retail investors, agencies are becoming the new narrative creators in the market. This is the winter for VCs and the spring for KOL agencies.

The "Next Stop" for VCs

Before a project goes live, the most common action to generate buzz on Twitter is to find KOLs to help retweet, write long articles, hang profiles, and conduct AMAs. But the question arises: who will post? What should be posted? How to contact KOLs? How to evaluate ROI? For a new project, even the first step can be daunting.

Project teams need visibility but lack communication skills; KOLs have content but lack connections. This is the real background for the emergence of KOL agencies, a business born from the market's information gap and trust needs.

"I was running a conference in Denver at that time, and many foreign project teams directly asked me if I could introduce them to Chinese KOLs," Dov recalled. "I casually helped one project connect with a Chinese KOL, and unexpectedly, the results were excellent."

Initially, he did not plan to work full-time in an agency. However, through repeated temporary assistance, he keenly captured a shift in the industry: "KOLs are flipping VC, and this will be a very critical trend."

After returning to China, he did not immediately go all in but gradually tried it out. By the end of 2023, at an event in Hong Kong, he once again felt the potential of the agency model strongly. It was then that his partner Lolo approached him, and they hit it off.

"She said the logic of 'KOL flipping VC' that I mentioned was particularly correct, and we could do something together. I felt the timing was right, so I tried taking on a few projects. At that time, there weren't many projects, and they were lukewarm."

The turning point came in January 2025, when Dov's Mango Labs entered a period of explosive growth, with traffic and collaborative projects starting to increase significantly. This period also marked the window for the KOL agency model to "rise."

Another founder, Er Gou of BLOCKFOCUS, was among the first in the Chinese-speaking region to start agency work. When he entered the space in 2018, he was working in marketing and KOL connections at a software company. A year later, he began managing KOL accounts himself, gradually building his KOL presence through content creation, riding trends, and engaging in community interactions.

"When I first started on Twitter, I only had 100 followers, but a prominent KOL was already following me." At that time, Er Gou was still a sophomore in college, the youngest in the circle, but very active. He jokingly said, "I was the 'um-hum' of that year."

With the accumulation of connections and resources, Er Gou officially launched BLOCKFOCUS's agency business in 2021, helping project teams find suitable KOLs for marketing and promotion.

"We Are Not MCNs"

If you have followed the traditional influencer economy, you must be familiar with the term "MCN." Essentially, the role of KOL agencies is very similar to that of MCNs in the Web2 world.

In the Web2 context, MCNs (Multi-Channel Networks) act as intermediaries between brands and influencers: brands do not need to connect with influencers one by one but can sign contracts, set prices, and manage through an MCN company, which centrally arranges content production and dissemination.

However, MCNs also have their "heavy industry" characteristics. A friend who runs a traditional economic company told BlockBeats that in Hangzhou, the most famous MCN company, Wuyou Media, KOLs typically sign exclusive contracts lasting 3-10 years with the agency, which is fully responsible for commercialization. Revenue sharing, brand placements, account management… even the "rise to fame" of KOLs is meticulously designed by the company.

This model thrived during the short video era, but when directly applied to Web3, it became somewhat out of place.

"In Web3, contracts have no binding power; the KOLs you cultivate can leave at any time and go wherever they want." Initially, BLOCKFOCUS founder Er Gou also considered signing KOLs, but after consulting a lawyer, he found that this approach does not work in Web3.

Thus, this is the current state of all KOL agencies: "We do not cultivate KOLs, nor do we sign exclusives."

Compared to the "buyout management" of Web2, KOLs in Web3 are more like freelancers; they can take on project A today, project B tomorrow, and even serve multiple agencies simultaneously.

Hyperion founder Miko resonates with this point.

Founded in 2019, Hyperion initially focused on integrated marketing for Web2 platforms—Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, and Video Accounts… The team developed comprehensive communication strategies for brand clients, coordinating KOL resources, placement plans, and conversion paths to help brands rapidly promote their products. By 2023, Hyperion officially transitioned into the Web3 space.

To adapt to this more "wild" and decentralized market environment, Hyperion made some adjustments to its organizational structure and execution methods: no signing or cultivating KOLs, only flexible cooperation: "Web3 KOLs cannot be managed; we do not sign anyone or buy anyone out; we are focused on collaboration, not control."

Circle Barriers

Although there are no exclusive contracts or buyouts in Web3, in this industry that heavily relies on personal relationships and trust, there exists a "small circle" culture and barriers between agencies, KOLs, and project teams.

"Many KOLs give us the lowest market quotes; they might quote $5,000 or $8,000 externally, but they tell us to just give what we think is appropriate." Every KOL they collaborate with is a good friend of Er Gou.

This relationship extends beyond business cooperation to daily emotional management. Er Gou and his team send cakes and write cards during holidays, play games, and dine with KOLs, and even during public relations crises, they can rely on "personal connections" to resolve issues like deleting posts.

"We understand how each KOL built their account, what type of content they excel at, their fan demographics, and even their recent emotional states," Er Gou said. "Only with deep understanding can we achieve true matching in placements."

This emotionally and cognitively based cooperative relationship makes some KOLs more willing to collaborate long-term with a particular agency, reducing the costs of repeated screening and communication, and allowing agencies to gradually form their own "exclusive resource pools."

The circle culture is not only evident in the ToC KOL network but also exists in the ToB project resource layer.

Especially in the current context of a shrinking primary market and increasing information asymmetry, who can grasp projects well and penetrate core communities has become key to whether new agencies can establish themselves.

All of this requires strong industry connections and resource backing. This is why most leading agency founders have backgrounds in VC or CEX; they understand project logic better and can more easily access resources at the project's inception stage.

Evie, founder of JE Labs, who has a diverse background in traditional consulting, crypto VC, and personal IP development, began JE Labs' agency business after leaving OKX Web3 Wallet in June 2024. She revealed that JE Labs currently has almost no dedicated business development staff; nearly all BD work in the industry is handled personally by the founders, and Evie is no exception.

"The types of projects you engage with and the collaborations you undertake can really reflect your circle; the backing from that circle is crucial." Resource accumulation and personal connections determine whether an agency can secure its first batch of truly high-quality projects, and these "initial projects" are the starting point for building a reputation cycle.

More Advanced Agencies Are Becoming "Investment-Oriented"

As the industry matures and competition increases, without a moat and deeper business strategies, everyone can only compete on "service fees," leading to a decline in overall industry revenue. The smart individuals transitioning from VCs have already realized this. Thus, more advanced agencies are beginning to transform. They are no longer intermediaries between KOLs and project teams but are gradually evolving into strategic partners with "investment logic."

Take JE Labs as an example; effective placement strategies rely on an execution team that understands the industry and excels at implementation. The JE Labs team consists of members from diverse backgrounds in consulting, VC, exchanges, and marketing at major Web2 companies, providing both macro market understanding and frontline practical experience. This cross-disciplinary team structure allows the team to quickly grasp the narrative focus of different project tracks and flexibly adapt to varying communication needs at different stages. Within JE Labs, Evie categorizes business services into four types, corresponding to four different collaboration models:

Pure KOL promotion services: Based on project team needs, the agency is responsible for KOL selection, scheduling execution, and designing promotion directions/talking points, generally charging a 20% service fee.
Customized consulting services: When a project has more complex needs, such as founder IP development, community growth strategy formulation, narrative design, or full-chain planning for AMAs, JE Labs will charge monthly based on the complexity and level of investment. However, to ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the collaboration, this type of cooperation will establish a minimum partnership of at least three months.
KOL rounds and community rounds: If the project team wishes to raise funds through KOL rounds or community rounds, the agency will provide a "fundraising service package" that includes narrative packaging, airdrop planning, distribution logic, and KOL mobilization. The fee structure is generally based on a percentage of the total fundraising amount in tokens.
Long-term advisory cooperation: Similar to a part-time CMO. For promising projects, JE can serve as their part-time CMO or marketing advisor, participating in rhythm planning, strategy design, and international deployment. The fee structure is "monthly payment + token incentives," and this type of cooperation is only open to a very limited number of projects.

Evie refers to this as "resource-leveraged investment"—deeply binding projects with cognition, resources, and discourse power, gaining real strategic discourse power while acquiring tokens.

She candidly stated, "There are many people who understand marketing in the market now, and there are also quite a few who understand the crypto industry, but very few can integrate the two and provide truly effective strategic advice at the strategic level."

"How to tell the narrative? How does the economic model align with the market? How to match the rhythm of KOL distribution? We are not serving KOLs; we are serving business logic," Evie summarized the true value of the agency.

She believes that agencies that only focus on KOL connections have very limited moats. In contrast, those that gradually transform into "strategic consultants + resource partners" possess deeper customer stickiness and business sustainability.

Currently, the leading agencies that have survived in the market have mostly shifted their service focus from "execution" to "accompanying," relying on the latter three types of business—fundraising support, in-depth consulting, and strategic binding—to build a more stable cash flow and deeper industry barriers.

VCs Shedding Skin, Agencies Emerging from the Winter

In fact, KOL agencies are not a new business born in this cycle; their prototypes have existed since previous cycles.

During the NFT bull market, a batch of "MCN teams" emerged briefly, serving NFT projects by building communities, organizing whitelist activities, maintaining Discord and WeChat groups, and coordinating early AMA promotions. At that time, many NFT project teams were not familiar with the operational logic of Web3, especially those traditional IPs that migrated from Web2; they did not understand the pricing system for KOLs, did not know who to place promotions with, and lacked the discourse power to "speak within the circle."

Thus, these MCNs took on the initial functions of "content packaging + traffic landing," which, to some extent, were prototypes of KOL agencies.

By 2021-2022, global liquidity was abundant, and the primary market was thriving. VCs held vast sums of money, and top-tier financing projects for public chains, ZK infrastructure, and Layer 2 protocols emerged one after another, with frequent financing rounds reaching tens of millions of dollars.

When money was no longer the most scarce resource, other resources became scarce.

With too many projects and a severe shortage of post-investment resources, what project teams lacked was not more money but more direct incubation resources. Thus, in the industry's self-regulation, another role closer to the "actual growth needs" of projects emerged: incubators/accelerators.

These incubators typically do not make investment decisions but act as part of the execution team post-VC investment, providing "landing assistance" services ranging from team building, incentive system design, media promotion, community operation, to user growth path planning, in exchange for tokens. This model, to some extent, further approached the current agency ecological niche.

It can be said that MCNs are a type of "content-based predecessor," while incubators are a "structural predecessor." The birth of agencies is a reconstruction of both in the Web3 context after their "ineffectiveness."

Today, as the primary market slows down and the secondary market retreats, VCs have entered a collective "loss of voice" period, while agencies have found a new upward path.

As Evie said, "Current project teams may not necessarily lack money, but they definitely lack resources, execution, and teams that can accompany their growth."

Agencies perfectly fill this new gap of the era—using cognition to help build narratives, using resources to connect communities, and using strategies to participate in fundraising and listing paths.

The Disappearing VC Dividend

If the previous cycle was the highlight moment for VCs, then this cycle, they are facing a collective crisis of ineffectiveness.

In Dov's view, the reason VCs have "fallen behind" in this cycle ultimately comes down to a mismatch between supply and demand and the end of the era's dividends.

"Why do projects break even as soon as they launch? There are too many projects and too few retail investors. Everyone is competing for attention and liquidity, which are precisely the most scarce resources," Dov said.

Dov discussed from a macro perspective: In the last cycle, global liquidity was abundant, and after the pandemic, global asset prices inflated collectively, with U.S. stocks hitting new highs, booming real estate markets in third-world countries, and domestic primary investments being exceptionally hot, even overheated. In the search for new assets, crypto assets naturally became a "new outlet" in the eyes of retail investors. In that context, crypto VCs stood at the forefront: primary costs were extremely low, valuations rose rapidly, and projects completed several rounds of financing before even launching, with paper profits "soaring."

"You can understand crypto as a split of traditional finance; the money that had nowhere to go flowed here," Dov recalled. "In the last cycle, VCs were the biggest beneficiaries of the era's dividends."

But in this round, the money printing faucet for the dollar has been turned off, retail investors have withdrawn, the market has cooled, and everything has changed.

Many projects that VCs invested in have yet to find PMF (Product-Market Fit); users have not increased, products have not landed, and tokens lack the courage to even launch. Even if they do launch, it is often "drowned at the opening." Some projects even modify terms before unlocking tokens: extending lock-up periods, lowering valuations, or even forcing buybacks.

With no way out in the primary market and no buyers in the secondary market, the once-mythologized VCs have now become "industry pests" in the eyes of retail investors. "It's like playing memecoins; VCs have filled the internal market waiting for retail investors to come in, and retail investors will definitely not buy."

VCs have no money, but projects still need someone to take over, so they turned to KOLs. Thus, in 2024, "KOL rounds" began to gain popularity, even evolving into what is now referred to as "community rounds."

This is a "run on the bank" that was bound to happen.

Dov compared it to his experience in traditional PE: "In the past, when we invested in consumer brands, a case would start at one or two hundred million dollars. The market was so hot that some projects had no profits, yet their valuations were a hundred times their revenue, which was completely irrational."

The same story has occurred in crypto. Over the past two years, crypto VCs have invested massive amounts of dollar funds in "concept projects." "But when they launched, they found no one used them, no one bought them, and no one believed in them. These projects became piles of 'paper wealth' on the table, and none could be realized."

"These changes are part of a global era shift, unrelated to exchanges, VCs, project teams, KOLs, or communities. A grain of sand in the era is a mountain in the industry," Dov told BlockBeats.

In Dov's view, this is not only a problem for crypto or Chinese VCs but a global market undergoing a comprehensive value reassessment: U.S. stock IPOs opening at a loss, Chinese concept stocks faltering; there are very few companies available in the Hong Kong stock market; VCs have lost the qualification to tell stories, and retail investors are no longer buying.

"Look at the U.S. now; Ant Group hasn't gone public, ByteDance hasn't gone public, and U.S. stock IPOs are similar to crypto listings, with most companies being drowned at the opening. Look at NIO, Missfresh, Perfect Diary; aren't the stock trends similar to those of altcoins? Even in the traditional primary market, there are bubbles everywhere."

The two cycles of crypto are reminiscent of the consumer capital bubble in China: "At that time, all brands used the same OEM, just changing the label and packaging to tell a new story; many projects in the crypto space are doing the same now."

Current projects are competing on who can tell the best story, attract the most active communities, leverage the strongest topic volume, and gain attention on Twitter.

Thus, agencies have been "chosen."

Blurred Boundaries

Er Gou observed the changes in the industry this round: "Almost every market cycle sees a batch of marketing teams, incubators, or accelerators emerge, but most are just fleeting. When a new round comes, it's all new faces again."

He recalled the "wild" growth phase of the industry in early 2021: "At that time, everyone was doing things piecemeal, far from being systematic." But now, with increasing competition, leading agencies have begun to form a trend of dual "reinforcement" in organizational structure and cognitive ability, truly starting to operate like a lightweight crypto VC.

Currently, there are two mainstream models of leading agencies in the industry.

Teams represented by JE Labs tend to adopt a "consulting firm" structure—each project is fully managed by a "project manager," overseeing everything from initial strategy to final execution.

At JE Labs, project managers are responsible not only for KOL selection, content review, placement scheduling, and data tracking but also specialize in specific tracks (DeFi, AI, Infra, etc.), gradually accumulating knowledge and practical skills in their niches. Language blocks are also included in the refined management dimension: the team masters KOL and media resources in Chinese, English, and Russian-speaking regions, accurately matching the communication habits and public opinion rhythms of each area.

Another type of representative agency is the "collaborative division of labor" agency, represented by BLOCKFOCUS and Hyperion. These teams break the entire marketing process into multiple modules, with different members completing them separately. For example, BD colleagues handle client connections and push for cooperation; project control leaders manage the overall project rhythm, feedback on milestones, and resource coordination; KOL operations manage the KOL resource pool and coordinate placement rhythms; content and data colleagues write content, review data, and adjust optimizations. This split operation is more suitable for managing multiple projects simultaneously and facilitates the creation of SOP processes for scalable service replication.

Whether through a project manager system or a multi-role collaboration system, top agencies are no longer "intermediaries" but are gradually evolving into lightweight VCs—understanding marketing, the projects themselves, and even investment and financing strategies.

Top agencies focus on three main tasks

The composite capabilities of "consulting + media + investment + strategy" have allowed such agencies to gradually develop into more lightweight entities with more stable cash flows.

The core competitive advantages and moats of these leading agencies have shifted from "who knows more KOLs" to three other aspects: selecting better projects, telling better narratives, and designing good exits.

Selecting Good Projects

Assess whether the supporting groups behind the project team are sufficiently native; consider the background of the founding team, their historical integrity records, resource vision, practical capabilities, and so on.

The criteria for top agencies when selecting projects are actually not much different from those of investors when choosing portfolios.

If every collaboration yields results, then KOLs working with the agency consistently make profits, and retail investors following KOLs can also earn money. The market's level of attention, trust, and buying interest in this agency will be different.

Therefore, BLOCKFOCUS's founder Er Gou has rejected many project collaborations: "Taking on more cases can certainly increase revenue, but it also means more management costs and training costs. If we damage the brand for the sake of volume, it would be counterproductive; the trust mechanism is particularly important."

When an agency can continuously produce multiple successful cases and receive high praise from clients, it enters a positive cycle: more quality projects seek collaboration, word-of-mouth enhances brand stickiness, leading to the selection of even better clients, which in turn creates better cases. At the same time, existing clients may also make repeat purchases, forming long-term cooperation.

Buy "Narrative" and Get "Execution"

If a16z is a representative of creating "VC-level" influence through narrative construction, today's top agencies are replicating this capability.

In the cold start phase of a project, users may not even understand what the project is about—at this time, what truly works is not the technical documentation, but a clear and compelling narrative.

What top agencies need to do is to simplify complex and difficult-to-understand technologies and products into a single sentence that retail investors can understand, enjoy, and be willing to follow.

Gary, COO of Mango Labs, once provided a vivid analogy: "An agency is like house design and construction. Twenty years ago, everyone bought construction with design included; now, it's buying design with construction included."

"KOL services" are the construction, while "narrative, rhythm and content control, crisis event handling" are the "house design."

An excellent agency no longer just "finds a few KOLs to post tweets," but truly participates in the early strategic planning of the project: from narrative building, budget allocation, to KOL selection, communication rhythm, and the expression of the economic model, every link requires "deep customization."

Evie, founder of JE Labs, detailed her refined categorization of KOL resources to BlockBeats, with each category having clear positioning and evaluation criteria:

Brand KOLs: These KOLs are usually researchers, senior media professionals, or content creators who have a strong reputation in the industry. They may not have the largest follower counts, but they possess significant discourse power and excel at helping projects establish long-term narratives and brand endorsements.
Traffic KOLs: A representative example is airdrop hunters. These KOLs have strong community mobilization capabilities and can quickly gather users to participate in project activities. The agency tracks their conversion effectiveness through referral links, with data being accurately quantified.
Trading KOLs: Primarily lead traders, they usually have powerful communities or trading groups that can directly influence token prices or on-chain trading volumes. Some KOLs collaborating with JE Labs can lead trades exceeding ten million dollars per month, and these KOLs typically bind commission bots to directly assess their contribution value through data.

Within Mango Labs, one of Joyce's responsibilities is to maintain the KOL list. She recalls her initial state when she joined: "At that time, I was just an ordinary user, and I based my understanding of the content on personal preference, not really grasping what influence meant."

However, after doing this job, she began to truly realize: "What kind of KOL can genuinely influence readers' perceptions? What content is considered valuable in the eyes of the project team? These are completely two sets of standards."

Accounts with obvious inflated metrics may still have genuine interactions, while some smaller accounts with abstract content can profoundly impact the core group of a sector. Some individuals have even established a strong sense of trust through daily sharing of real trading records. "So we can't judge quality based on follower counts; we need to assess compatibility."

Therefore, in addition to positive marketing, some agencies creatively plan "scripted battles" to precisely control the rhythm of public opinion, quickly amplifying the project's topic through trending events. For example, Hyperion excels at building heat from the perspective of "entertainment narrative."

Founder Miko stated: "We are essentially traditional marketers; for us, Web3 is just another content platform. We want to redo what we did in Web2 in Web3."

Their approach has a strong traditional "entertainment industry attribute": project collaborations, conflicts, murder mystery games, KOL rivalries, and even FUD scripts, using these personalized marketing strategies to enhance project visibility.

"You can't just send out a list and have everyone post content at the same time," Miko explained. "You need to design the order of appearances, speaking styles, and rhythms for each person, almost like choreographing a multi-person dialogue drama. The communication needs to have dramatic elements to create memorable points."

In his view, these activities represent another form of execution and communication tension. Their selection of KOLs is not limited to "traffic bloggers"; they also include many developers, investors, and DAO organizations as Web3 KOLs, allowing for promotion from multiple angles during project dissemination.

"It may even achieve cross-border and cross-industry effects because we are transitioning from traditional MCNs, and we have media resources and rich connections in traditional industries such as entertainment, sports, and fashion." The core team of Hyperion includes several members from major internet companies like Tencent, who have extensive connections in traditional media and mainstream online media.

"We currently have an offline salon space in Hong Kong, and a space in Shenzhen is under renovation. In the future, these venues will be open for free to Web3 entrepreneurs and practitioners for hosting exchange meetings, salons, or industry sharing," Miko stated.

Resourceization of VCs and Agencies

In addition to the previously mentioned tasks of KOL selection, narrative creation, and community alignment, most project teams actually face a large number of trivial yet critical resource connection needs. This is precisely one of the core advantages of many leading agencies.

From handling public relations crises, connecting with buyers, to introducing market makers and trading platform resources, these services may seem scattered but can truly open the "backdoor" to project growth paths. As BLOCKFOCUS founder Er Gou said: "The value of this information far exceeds that of ordinary KOL placements."

He pointed out that many times, agencies understand better than the project teams themselves where the project should go and what the project team truly cares about—listing.

"For example, if a project wants to list on a trading platform, we can provide key information gaps: telling them the focus of different trading platforms when listing tokens, the current narrative hotspots, and sometimes even indirectly inquiring about the internal judgments on listing rhythms," Er Gou stated. "BLOCKFOCUS is not just a KOL agency; it is also a KOL incubation MCN. Most importantly, our team functions more like a crypto consulting firm. Any crypto team needs a highly resourceful senior broker who can find ways to substantively help the team solve problems, and our team is well-suited for that."

These "information gaps," which may seem unknown to outsiders, have become a routine capability within the networks of leading agencies.

Dov, founder of Mango Labs, has also repeatedly mentioned in public forums and conversations with BlockBeats: "This is not an industry secret; it is our long-term public thinking and industry experience."

He further pointed out: From the perspective of trading platforms, the logic of listing tokens is actually very clear—there are only two KPIs: acquiring new users and generating trading volume. Therefore, as long as a project can bring in people or money, it is a "worthy project to list."

In addition to these projects, Dov also summarized a type of project that is "naturally easier to be noticed": simple and straightforward narratives that evoke emotional resonance; a genuinely active community with concentrated KOLs and topicality; content that retail investors can understand, that trading platform BDs can initiate projects for, and that media can easily disseminate: "Essentially, you need to give the trading platform a sufficiently Make Sense reason."

So when we return to the beginning of the article and see ABCDE Capital announcing the cessation of new project investments and shifting focus to incubation and the secondary market, it is not surprising. Whether as VCs or project teams, everyone has realized that making money is becoming increasingly difficult, and it is better to engage in businesses with stable cash flows.

If it weren't for the historically rare liquidity in 2021, the path for traditional primary VCs might have changed even earlier—either shifting to the secondary market or becoming resource-oriented VCs, similar to incubators and agencies.